CNN
—
An extra evaluation by the US army into the deadly Abbey Gate bombing in the course of the Afghanistan withdrawal in 2021, which aimed to clear up excellent questions in regards to the assault, has concluded that service members had not beforehand seen the suspected bomber forward of the assault, however believed that they had due to conflated intelligence reporting.
“Over the previous two years, some service members have claimed that that they had the bomber of their sights, and so they might have prevented the assault,” one of many officers on the supplemental evaluation crew advised reporters on Friday. “However we now know that isn’t right.”
The bomber was recognized as Abdul Rahman al-Logari, a member of ISIS-Ok. The phobia group recognized al-Logari because the bomber hours after the assault, however US officers had not but publicly confirmed he carried out the assault. Officers additionally confirmed that al-Logari had been launched by the Taliban from a jail close to Kabul simply days earlier than the assault, which CNN previously reported.
The army will hope the brand new evaluation clears up excellent questions in regards to the circumstances of the assault, significantly these from members of the family of the 13 US service members killed, a few of whom have questioned the conclusions of the army’s authentic evaluation, which was introduced in 2022.
The supplemental evaluation was formally introduced by US Central Command in September final yr, simply days after households of the fallen troops demanded solutions on the bombing throughout an emotional congressional roundtable.
The evaluation partly addressed public testimony by Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews, a Marine Corps sniper who told Congress last year that he noticed a person who match the outline of the suicide bomber close to Abbey Gate previous to the assault.
Whereas the evaluation crew officers who briefed reporters by no means named Vargas-Andrews or any others who’ve spoken publicly in regards to the bombing and the withdrawal, they denied elements of his public account, together with that a man he noticed previous to the assault was the bomber.
The Military and Marine officers who performed the supplemental evaluation advised reporters on Friday that al-Logari arrived simply hours earlier than the lethal blast on August 26, 2021, that killed scores of civilians and 13 US service members — 11 Marines, one soldier, and a Navy corpsman.
Officers mentioned that service members believed one other man to be the bomber on the time. However the supplemental evaluation in contrast a photograph of the person with images of al-Logari after US intelligence confirmed he was the bomber and located the “strongest unfavourable attainable score” that the 2 folks had been the identical.
The US had images of al-Logari from his time in detention earlier than he was launched by the Taliban, officers mentioned.
The supplemental evaluation, which started in June of final yr and was performed by US Military Central, included 52 extra interviews on high of the greater than 100 already performed within the authentic US Central Command investigation, which was launched in February 2022.
The brand new evaluation finally didn’t change the findings from CENTCOM’s authentic investigation, which discovered, amongst different issues, that the bombing was not preventable at a tactical degree.
The evaluation crew officers mentioned advised they interviewed present and former service members — a few of whom have since retired or left army service — throughout 24 completely different places, taking officers so far as Okinawa, to conduct the interviews.
“I believe it’s additionally very clear to us that as you speak to the completely different people, 190 whole, each single one among them had a unique perspective,” one of many evaluation crew members mentioned. “And I believe that’s crucial to notice. So our job in the course of the investigation was to take all these completely different views and put the items collectively from these completely different views.”
A evaluation crew member advised reporters the evaluation was “exhaustive,” and answered the remaining questions in regards to the bombing.
Officers mentioned {that a} important a part of the confusion about what occurred on August 26 stemmed from a conflation of precise intelligence reporting with what is named spot reporting, which is when a service member would report one thing suspicious they’d noticed to their command.
On August 25, two sorts of experiences got here by: an intelligence report and a spot report from Marines with the twenty fourth Marine Expeditionary Unit. The intelligence report provided a imprecise description of who to be looking out for — somebody in unfastened garments, with groomed hair and carrying a black bag of explosives.
The identical day, Marines submitted a spot report of a military-aged male, sporting a “beige man costume” and carrying a black bag, strolling with a toddler towards the North Gate of the airport.
By the morning of August 26, these experiences had been conflated into one, officers mentioned, main the sniper crew to request permission to have interaction a bald man sporting black clothes and a backpack, who they noticed sitting with an adolescent.
They had been finally denied permission to have interaction, and overlooked the person within the crowd. Seven hours later, the bomb detonated at Abbey Gate.
The officers rejected the concept that the sniper crew and others spent an excessive amount of time specializing in the unsuitable suspect, saying that service members on the gate had been “vigilant always.”
“They recognized the bald man in black round (7 a.m.), overlooked him round 10am. The assault didn’t happen till seven and a half hours later. So it’s not as in the event that they’re looking at one location after which a bombing occurred at one other location concurrently, there are seven half hour time distinction. So primarily based on our evaluation … they’re doing what they’re speculated to be doing. They recognized a attainable risk, they’re evaluating that risk, and so they’re working primarily based on the knowledge that they had accessible to them on the time.”
The evaluation crew additionally denied claims that the sniper crew’s battalion commander didn’t know the foundations of engagement. They mentioned the battalion commander visited the sniper tower in-person on the morning of August 26, the place they identified to him the bald man in black that they believed to be a suspect.
The officers defined that the crew believed the person to be suspicious as a result of he appeared to have a “lack of curiosity in being evacuated” and was merely sitting and observing the evacuation.
The sniper crew chief briefed their battalion commander on their considerations, and mentioned that he was an “precise match for the outline of the bomber,” a member of the evaluation crew mentioned.
“Now what is alleged subsequent between the snipers and the battalion commander within the tower is unclear, however any portrayal of those occasions displaying the battalion commander didn’t perceive the foundations of engagement are simply not supported by the proof,” the evaluation crew member advised reporters.
Among the many different findings within the extra evaluation was that it’s unlikely there was an IED test-run forward of the August 26 assault, however officers couldn’t rule it out, and that leaders had been “routinely current and engaged in any respect ranges.” Officers additionally mentioned Friday that the evaluation affirmed that use of extreme drive by the Taliban led to civilian deaths.
In the end, officers mentioned the supplemental evaluation reaffirmed that US troops on the bottom in the course of the withdrawal “believed that what they had been doing mattered.”
“As we performed the supplemental opinions, it turned very clear to us that service members believed that what they had been doing mattered, that it made a distinction, and that it was essential. They usually remained undeterred, even with the elevated risk reporting,” the evaluation member mentioned. “And although the brand new info didn’t change our Abbey Gate findings, it reaffirmed what we discovered two years in the past, and I believe it helped present extra readability.”